LABOUR can win control of the Scottish Parliament if it makes the case for a socialism rooted in “values forged in the fire of daily struggle”, Scottish Labour’s new leader Richard Leonard said on Saturday.

At an event in Glasgow, the party announced that left-winger Mr Leonard, a former trade union official who has served in Holyrood for less than two years, had won the backing of 56.7 per cent of the party’s electorate.

“I THINK we’ll see Scottish Labour providing a much more radical alternative to the SNP and the Tories, and I’m delighted. Richard’s been absolutely clear that under his leadership Labour will stand on the side of workers.

“Richard has a long track record of supporting workers in struggle, and representing them over 20 years. So I think it will be very clear what side Labour’s on when we see legitimate industrial disputes.”

Kate Shaw Nelson: Chair of Scottish Labour Students

“HOPEFULLY this can lead to a complete renewal of the Scottish Labour Party. On one of the phonebanks, we had pushing 40 people coming along on a wet Tuesday night in Scotland, and the overwhelming majority of them were under 25.

“And they’re the people you need. The Tories’ voters are only getting older, but if we can get round the youth vote, if we can capture the spirit the SNP managed to capture in 2014, that’s us.”

Dr Ewan Gibbs: Labour historian, University of the West of Scotland

“THIS week we’ve seen the Scottish labour movement renewing itself politically and industrially. To see the occupation of the BiFab yards combined with Richard Leonard’s election is a strong sign of the direction we can take things in.

“Richard’s vision for full employment, for industrial democracy, accords perfectly with what we’re seeing [in the work-ins] in Fife and Lewis. That’s the environmental and economic changes that we need to take forward.”

WORKERS at threatened Scottish engineering firm BiFab are celebrating victory after securing the firm’s future following a united week-long campaign: here.

How is it that hard-working women and men who are striving to pay their mortgages and feed their families are paying every single penny in tax that they owe but the global elite are able to play the system and protect their pots of gold from the tax authorities?

Their greed in evading tax is denying the Treasury the resources to pay for much needed new schools, a massive cash injection for the NHS and public investment in house building and infrastructure projects.

The Labour Party 2017 election manifesto rightfully states that the party is committed to “rewriting the rules of a rigged system, so that the economy really works for the many and not only the few.”

Did you know that six million people in work earn below the living wage, the richest 10 per cent now own 900 times the wealth of the poorest 10 per cent and the gender pay gap continues to be 18.1 per cent but 37.4 per cent in financial services where women are the majority of the workforce?

When the world’s banks brought our economy to its knees 10 years ago, only a fool could conclude that the system should carry on unreformed.

But despite numerous political and industry inquiries, investigations and much reassurance to never allow the mistakes to be repeated we witness “business as usual.”

Ten years on we see that RBS, which took a government bailout of more than £58 billion, continues to cut thousands of jobs year on year in the name of “efficiency,” that staff in Capita are fighting tooth and nail to protect their retirement incomes and that employees across the economy are battling to address the inequalities brought by the performance-related pay systems.

The gap between the top and bottom of the financial services sector couldn’t be wider. At the bottom staff have seen hundreds and thousands of their colleagues lose their livelihoods, they have seen their workloads multiply and their mental health suffer through job insecurity and stress.

Staff are being forced to work longer, work harder and earn less. The same pattern is being repeated across public services where seven years of pay cuts has demoralised the workforce and driven many to foodbanks.

Within the current economic system many working people across the economy are today earning less, after inflation, than they did 10 years ago. The majority are seeing their incomes fall while their debts rise.

During the summer, Unite members as diverse as those employed by Serco as hospital porters, cleaners and security personnel and by the Bank of England took strike action on pay and we were joined on the picket lines by shadow chancellor John McDonnell.

Yet the financial services industry is allowed to continue to operate in the interests of the corporate elite. The economic system simply works to sustain the status quo to the detriment of small businesses and local economies.

But hope should not be lost, we can make changes, we can upgrade our economy, we can deliver Labour’s vision of an “economy that works for the many, and not just the few.”

Labour has shown that the British government could make a difference today if it wanted to. Straightforward changes that could be implemented immediately could transform the economy to ensure we realise the wasted potential which is holding our country back.

The proposals around a financial transaction tax, a new unit to detect tax avoidance in HMRC and simply requiring the top 5 per cent of earners to contribute more in tax to help fund our public services.

And when will government commit to spending the £350 million extra every week on the NHS as was emblazoned on the Brexit battle bus?

We can be a stronger and fairer nation if we acknowledge that the current system simply bloats the corporate and individual greed of those at the top because the prospect of change appears too remote.

Yet allowing the inequality to swell will merely allow the already rich to concentrate their riches.

The broken economic model that encourages false self-employment rife in the construction industry, that celebrates “competition” in essential services such as energy, is not a natural order divined by a celestial body.

This broken economic model represents political choices over decades that serve those who grab profits over those who create wealth and provide public services.

Unite is pledged to keep fighting for a system that is fairer and functions for the many not the just for the few.

Ultimately this means we must organise in every workplace, mobilise around the issues that matter to members and take action to take back what is owed and deserved.

Two million protested against war in Iraq in London on February 15, 2003, amid global demonstrations comprising the biggest protest event in world history. As Channel 4 News reported, the war was “historically unpopular” and the “mother of all focus groups” had descended on London to bring that fact home to Tony Blair.

His supposed change of heart was revealed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme when he said: “Jeremy is a phenomenon. He has cut through because he expresses people’s anger at what has happened — the discontent.

“When he attacks universal credit, he is speaking for many people. When he says the health service is underfunded, he is speaking for many.

“What he is saying on these things is absolutely right.”

Mr Brown acknowledged that, during his time in government, he and Mr Corbyn had rarely seen eye to eye. The latter voted against the then Labour government more than 500 times — often over the Iraq war.

“You have got to convert this sense that you have restored people’s faith in your principles to a plan for the future that is credible and therefore electable and a programme that is popular.”

He said that Labour much now set about “producing a programme that is costed and which is popular and which is both radical and progressive” — implying that the party’s fully-costed manifesto is not credible enough for victory at the next general election.

“That is the challenge for any left-wing or progressive party,” Mr Brown added.